An increasing number of students are participating in distance learning such as, for example, educational courses over the Internet. These courses often contain various types of multi-media or interactive teaching tools in addition to traditional lectures, assignments, and exams. As established institutions offer more on-line educational institutions and on-line courses, administrators and educators are demanding more efficient and convenient course management tools. While known course management systems provide for reporting of student performance relative to assessment content, such systems typically do not adequately enable institutions to demonstrate student achievement or teaching effectiveness in terms of standardized learning outcomes or learning objectives, i.e., by other than mere GPA.
The No Child Left Behind Act requires each state to establish standards for K-12 knowledge and skill sets in core subject areas and to provide student achievement data in these areas. In higher education, standards defining achievement or acquisition of these knowledge and skill sets (referred to herein as “learning outcomes”) are typically created locally by each school. Moreover, accreditation agencies encourage that institutions establish learning outcome accountability measures, i.e. that learning outcomes are adequately measurable and that the outcomes are reported.
Accreditation is critical to institutions since federal and state grants and loans as well as company tuition reimbursement programs typically require that a college, university, or program be accredited. Similarly, state governments often require accreditation for program graduates to sit for state licensure examinations or to be eligible for state employment. On-line students also benefit from obtaining measurable results from participating in a course or program.
Accrediting agencies impose certain requirements on institutions seeking to gain accreditation. The following exemplary requirements are found in the Educational Effectiveness Indicators section of the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (“WASC”) Manual of Accreditation:    Have formal learning outcomes been developed?            Where are these learning outcomes published? (Please specify)            Other than GPA, what measures/indicators are used to determine that graduates have achieved the stated outcomes for the degree? (e.g., capstone course, portfolio review, licensure exam)    Date of last program review for this degree.
Additional specific guidelines and requirements for distance programs have been developed in a joint effort by eight regional accrediting agencies and documented in the Interregional Guidelines for Electronically Offered Degree and Certificate Programs, 2002.
Student achievement is typically reported only as a single course letter grade, rather than as scores associated with individual learning outcomes. In other words, conventional achievement tracking and reporting systems typically manage content only at the learning content level, i.e. these systems do not tie individual examination questions back to defined learning outcomes. Furthermore, conventional systems provide little or no capability to evaluate aggregate student performance relative to target learning outcomes.
Accordingly there is a need for a system and method for efficiently measuring and reporting performance for students, professors, classes, course sections, courses, or programs over extended periods of time based on established learning outcomes for purposes of accreditation review, along with observing trends and identifying areas for improvement or concern.